I'm quite new to blogging and as such I learn everyday. Yesterday for instance, thanks to Jackie247n, I learnt about "random comments", I'm still struggling to grasp the concept but if I understood correctly it's about people visiting blogs at random and posting a short comment. Unless I'm all wrong and it's about machines visiting blogs at random and posting a random comment from their large database of good-for-all-situations comments.

I guess it isn't this though. The latter one must be called "comment spam", Robert Neville told me about them last time because, thankfully, I've never seen about them myself. According to him, you receive some comments such as: "Hey, great site buddy !" or "I stumbled across your site and I really like it", then followed with a link to their own blog or some weird medical site a la enlarge-my-penis spam feast. Needless to say even if you're redirected to their blog, it's all about the same crap too. Scary.

Anyway, if like me you're a naive imbecile who doesn't know about "random comments" and who had a tiring day, you feel giving a reply is a must. And damn, did I reply ! Presumably I was very tired because I posted 4 long comments I think. That's... stupefying. But, thanks to this, something good happened today: it gave me something to write about ! I'm tired again (5 hours of sleep plus standing for hours under a burning sun) and I had nothing to talk about; my mind is plain empty and I really didn't feel like writing about some interesting or relevant, and so, as usual, I didn't.

Now I just have to figure out how many types of comments are left in the world besides "random" and "spam". Tonight, I promise (to who ? I don't know) I won't try to escape a decent time to go to bed.

Today's retro game: Sonic Blastman

Today's recent game: Mutsu to Nohohon

It seems I scared random commentators away, :) or :( . I'll post a random entry then. But about what ? I'm not good at random things. Ok, let's cast a die. If it's 1: I'll talk about gaming; if it's 2: the topic will be movies; if it's 3: Internet, you shall discuss; if it's 4: about my day; if it's 5: we'll ponder about my dreams; if it's 6: I'll exhibit my sex life.

Roll the die........ !


Oh, it is a three, what a surprise. Of course I had no intention of talking about my sex life, come on, but, speaking about sex and Internet, there was this experiment I wanted to try. No, not cyber-sex. I wanted to see if it would make a significant difference to my stats to use popular words, words which currently top search engines.

Of course sex must be one of them, it's always one of them, we, humans, men especially, are so shallow. Searches related to learning or knowledge must be at the bottom of the searches, and filth and stupidity is at the top. Or at least I think so, let's see what search engines think about it.

Oh no, I was all wrong ! According to Yahoo! Buzz Index the number 1 this week has indeed a woman's name, but not the type you want to have sex with. She's more like a "femme fatale" since she's the Hurricane Katrina. So news are more powerful than sex after all. Second is Eva Longoria, who the hell is that ? Never heard of, but at least it's a woman and she probably doesn't look too bad or she wouldn't be at the top, would she ? She seems to be an actress, but strangely, when looking for her in the image search, I only get pictures of her wearing bikini. Perhaps she only played in underwater movies.

Below this certainly very talented actress, it's not a man we find as one might have expected but gas prices. Should have made a joke about Eva Longoria and the gas pump hose ? I think not. So again news are mightier than the fair sex and its exotic poses, even at number 4, since the Red Cross occupies this spot. The best in human nature has prevailed. Fortunately, one of the great masters of filth is here at spot number 5, it's MTV of course, the channel which makes you proud to be an idiot.

MTV is also 9th with a bunch of celebrities (mostly females, oho) and again some news-related search. "People care, only when it's in the news" this I quote from Robert, thank you Robert. But was I wrong, was I finally just blinded by prejudices ? Is a world a better place you can expect, with people not looking for sex and porn ? Come on, let's not be stupid, we all know Yahoo probably remove these words from their buzz index. And so does Google. And Lycos. But who care about Lycos, hmm ?

I still believe in my theory, and what's best to prove a theory than experimenting by yourself ? I'd say these words must be popular: "sex porn Paris Hilton blog Dragonball poker gas price" (I'm not going to use the hurricane, it would indecent), so now let's try to make a sentence with them and let it become the title for this entry. So, let's see, hmm, it could become something like...


Today's retro game: Dragon Ball

Today's recent game: Pokemon Colosseum

Finally, I wonder if putting the names of Paris Hilton and Dragonball along with porn, sex, blog, gas price and poker just freaked out everyone. Today is one of those exhausting days, as a matter of fact the whole week has been exhausting, today was just the pinnacle. I realized I had a painting of a living-dead hanging in the hall, until my eyes could focus again and see I was just looking at myself in the mirror, yep, that's how bad I look at the moment. I had a splitting headache earlier and I now feel physically all the missing hours of sleep.

If I could only go to bed on time... yesterday I went past 3am again, I couldn't help programming. I was rather proud of what I was doing, still with the ftp functions for php, and learning a bit more of Javascript. But when I tested the whole thing on the server, it didn't work, and somehow I expected it. Now I can't stop wondering if what I want to do is actually possible or if I just misunderstood how you could use ftp with php. Time will tell, I'll do more testing after writing this entry.

Actually, I worked today and I still have to go back working before it's getting too late, I also need to find something to eat or I might spend the night starving (that happens sometimes). Nothing much interested to say as usual. Before I forget, one thing I wanted to tell, I heard it from serious site owners and I couldn't believe it at first because it sounded so disgusting but coming from IGN after all, well, it shouldn't be so surprising. It seems people in the gaming press knows about it, so I guess it's real.

IGN offers some money to websites they select and which will accept to put a text link to their site, in order it seems to increase their ranking in Google ! I'm sure some people might think that it's generous of them to pay, but come on, this is so unfair !They literaly buy their way to the top by bribing other sites. Personally, it makes me sick because it's so hard for small sites like mine just to be noticed. Not only IGN can easily do better because they have money to spend for their writers but they also have money to spend for making sure they are well ranked in Google. This is so filthy. This is the hidden face of Internet, Internet is supposed to be about freedom and equality, everyone has a chance to stand out, but again money corrupts everything.

Today's retro game: Super Pang

Today's recent game: Geist

Use the Net, Luke ! I'm back after 3 weeks without the Internet, it was like a near-death experience. Talking about death, it's almost 3 am, I haven't eaten yet and I'm quite tired so I won't post anything more today. In the next days I'll post a list of all the things which went wrong this month, so wrong that it's now officially dubbed Cursed September.

Buonas noches.

Oh no... not agaaaain ! I thought I was cure of this nasty habit, but look at the time it's 3 am and I'm still up, too alive and kicking to go to bed just yet. If I want to waste time before hitting the hay I have much more important things to do than writing in my Tabulas though, so I'll keep it short (and I just realized I forgot to post my game of the day yesterday).

One thing at the moment worries me terribly much, it's my sight, it's so bad. I should go to the eye doctor for a check-up and definitely get new glasses, everything is starting to get really fuzzy around me, I even think I start to have slight troubles reading the computer screen (my head tends to bend forward, my eyes to focus harder, etc). The reason why I haven't been to the doctor yet and I'm still reluctant to go is because my sight was already so bad that the fact it's still worsening is, literally, scaring the shit out of me. When is it going to stop ? Will it stop at all ? Why is it going so bad, is it just because I'm getting older, did I spoil so bad because of computers, is there something else, some other problem behind it ? And many, many other scary questions I'm too afraid to face. So I just try to ignore it for the time being, as impossible as it may seem. For two weeks now, I think my sight has dropped dramatically, and within a year, I think it has really worsened considerably.

Don't want to think of it, don't want to think of it... but why is this happening and what's next ? And worst of all, there is this adjective in my mind always: irreversible. Sight loss is irreversible.

Today's retro game: Dr. Mario (cure my eyes !)

Today's recent game: X-Men: Next Dimension (should I wish for Cyclop's eyes ?)

I watched 2 movies today on TV: Fortress 2, which was bad (sometimes some good ideas in the script, but poorly executed), and Detroit Rock City, a very fun comedy about teenagers, KISS and the 70's with, among others, Edward Furlong. Now of course it's 3 am again.

Dang.

At least the evening hasn't been totally unproductive. I found a name for this blog, that I will put in use some time later when I finally do some redesign or something close to it, and I visited that site, you know THAT site, themilliondollarhomepage or something like that. I'm not going to link to it, I don't want what I'm going to write here to be read, not so early at least.

This guy had a great idea, a great nasty idea: he's selling pixels ! Each of them worth $1, there's one million of them to rent and you can buy them to put whatever you want. The only constraint is that you buy the minimum size 10x10 pixels, so you end up buying a minuscule 10 per 10 pixels space for $100. This guy is a sincere con artist in a way, and it's paying off ! Accroding to its stats so far he has made $200.000. Mostly because people and news sites started to talk about his site, to link to it.

He's a student and he's basically saying he needs this money for not being endebted. This is where my sympathy ends. Well, truth it never really started, I was just in admiration and jealous of such a cunning plan to get money. In addition, his site is very well made. What makes me sick about his stupid pretext is that he doesn't just say I want to make one million dollars, nope, it's for not being endebted. I wonder how students get endebted, how they get their damn expensive universities in the first place. I went to university, but it was free and crappy and I didn't get endebted, on the contrary, I made some money because I was poor enough to receive a grant.

Now I'm not any richer at all, but the circumstances are better, I have two badly paid part-time works. From my perspective, there's something disgusting about his pretext, there's nothing wrong in wanting one million dollars if you honestly admit you want it, who wouldn't, right ? Only people who deal with millionS dollars probably wouldn't be interested, but I hate the idea of this rich student going to his wealthy business school and "oh dear, I don't want to be endebted so I will well need one million dollars to pay for my extravaganza." It's like those people, that woman in particular, who was asking people on the Net to pay her huge debt because of all kind of stupid and useless luxury goods she had bought. And people did help her to pay it back. This is freaking disgusting I think, it's like, help the rich of they can't buy all their useless expensive crap ! While some people are starving to death or wonder where they will sleep tonight. This is revolting and disgusting.

Anyway, what I'd like to do about the milliondollarpage is to create a copycat for my own. Oh yes, I'd definitely like that and I hope I will, but the difference will be that on my site each pixel will be sold for just 1 cent of dollar, 99% cheaper, because 10000$ is a huge amoung of money and that's well enough for me. Besides, a pixel is certainly not worth more, actually, it's not even worth that much, but if people want to pay, let's make them pay a fair price. Actually, with 10000$ I could live very healthily for a very long time ! With 10000$ for instance, I would have enough for my daily spendings (food and so on) for 4 years ! Woohoo.

I really hope I have enough time to make that site and that people will find it and realize 1 cent a pixel is better than 1 dollar.


Today's retro game: Duck Tales (the blood of uncle McScrooge is running in everyone of us)

Today's recent game: Wario World (or is it Wario's genes of greed and dirt ?)

I've been working on that sweet secret project in the evening. I can't say what it is, I can't even give a hint, but I'm happy with it and hopefully it will become something interesting and succesful. It could turn into a very good site but it's going to take a lot of work, no opening before 2006 for sure.

Today I also spent some time updating Samurai Nintendo's forum, getting rid of the useless posts and cleaning various little things. Time to eat and watch a movie and perhaps I'll end up in bed before 3 am for once !

Today's retro game: Super Ghouls N Ghosts (because today I was wondering which game Tim Burton could adapt in video games and I thought of this old classic)

Today's recent game: Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix (related to my today's "lecture" on how Nintendo turns the brave little plumber AND adventurer Mario into a mushy Disney-like character)

Nah, not you. Me ! Me who is still up at 4 am when I've been complaining for the past days that I go to bed at 3. Me the very stupid who complains and comes here to write about it and loses a few more minutes before going to bed. I suck BIG TIME lately. But I won't be more stupid than that and I live now.

Today's retro game: Wild Gunman (because today was very western-like and I thought of john Ford)

Today's recent game: WarioWare: Mega Party Game$ (because I keep thinking how much Nintendo sucks nowadays with these stupid mini-games titles which I personally don't give a damn about... give us back the good old action and adventure games !)

I really have a trouble lately with organizing my schedule. Ok, it might have been like this for a year, or a couple of years, or maybe forever. I don't know anymore but things don't go smoothly, again it's late (quarter past one) and this time I haven't even eaten yet ! Food is just cooking, what a shame.

On top of that, today again I have pain in the back, usually it's in the lower part, this time it is in the upper part, on the right side. That adds to my tiredness. My other problem right now, is: which one of my sites and projects am I going to work on before going to bed ? That might sound silly, but I have a problem with that too. I have many different projects and one reason for that is to always have interest and energy to put in them, if i get bored of one of them, I can move to another one. Now though, I have so much choice, that I might spend more time making up my mind which one to choose, which one fits the best my mood and inspiration tonight (damn, I talk like an artist ! -- and now like a producer), than actually working on any site.

I have also a pain the arm. I have pains everywhere ! Well, it's so late anyway that I probably won't have time to work on anything, especially if I keep blabblering here.

Today's retro game: The Incredible Hulk (because today was certainly a Megadrive-me-crazy day... haha_a !)

Today's recent game: F-Zero GX (because the day past faster than one of those F-Zero bullet-cars)

It's fun to stay at the YMCA, YMCAAAA ! Oops, wrong one.
Yesterday I created an account at YMDB (Your Movie DataBase), a curious belgian site to create and share your favorite list of films. What I find amusing about it is that it almost feel like a "disposable website", you use it one time and then it's over. I exaggerate of course but not so much.

I had already written down my list of favorite movies (I actually have a list of my 60 favorite movies, must be 5 or 6 years old... you can guess that just by looking at the paper) so it took me just a few minutes to enter them all. Your list cannot be longer than 20 films so it's quickly done. After that I checked other people's lists, received 2 comments and that was all. Somehow I felt it was finished and I won't really come here anymore.

It's a pity because the site is well made, but there's not enough to do. The problem with such a site is, that if you want to offer enough interesting functions and deal at the same time with what can become a huge amoung of data, you need a database and a server that can match the demand. If they can't record enough users preferences or enough film data for instance, your site won't be satisfying. On the other hand, if you overload your server and database because there are too many things to record on your site, it won't work either. Your site will be slow or will be crashing all the time.

When you're a beginner, you can't afford to start with a server and a huge database so I guess it kills some of your ambitions, even though it's sometimes better to start little to grow bigger. And yet, is it still possible ? Nowadays, there are so many sites out there, so many performant sites which propose, often for free, such a vast array of interesting functions and services, that it feels nearly impossible for a beginner to compete with any of them. It feels a waste of time to try to offer a somewhat interesting service because someone is already doing it, so much better and entirely free, which was definitely not what you planned.

Nevertheless, with my next project, I will try to do something like this and bypass the constraints related to server overload and limited bandwidth that a beginner like me will quickly have to deal with. Not sure how it's going to work but this will be interesting anyway. Oh, and worst of all, this site won't be free. I do need money so I will charge 6 or 7 euros (7,9 dollars). Am I insane ? No, I just hope my idea is good enough and that I will deliver it well enough.

Today's retro game: Tiny Toon Adventures (I feel like a toon about to begin a journey much bigger and tougher than himself)

Today's recent game: Ikaruga (Talking about "tough"...)

Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be ?" in comparison to my question is pointless. My computer-which-is-not-actually-mine has become a real pain. Today, for the first time, I got the "your hard drive is full" message. With 3 giga, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but rather sooner.

This is frustrating because I don't know what exactly I should erase, I really tried to keep it as compact as possible and save only things I need. I guess I will find some stuff to delete eventually; the mere thought to spend time sorting all this irritates me very much.

However, this is not where the deadly duel between me and my computer is taking place. Nope. This highly dramatical showdown occurs when multi-tasking. Basically, I can't have two key programs running at the same time. If I browse the web and use a graphic program, every single action requires tens of seconds of hard-drive access. Waiting I'm sure must be one of the torments they inflict you in the depth of Hell. Waiting is so annoying, just changing window takes a 10~20 seconds load time. Even sites with Flash because of this are a pain to browse.

Today I was uploading a few pictures (6) on Flickr, not too big ones. It took me 2 hours to do that ! 2 HOURS to resize pictures and upload them because everything was so FUCK*NG slow. I had to give up trying to use Flickr's organizr because the Flash interface made it impossible to work on my computer: infinite loading time. I seriously need to get a new computer or I'm good for the madhouse, this thing really drives me insane, I can't believe I bear it for 4 years... of course it has been worsening with time and new programs being installed, but still, it's always been slow anyway.

Ah, I wish one day I could buy my own PC. I never had a PC of my own, I wonder if it will ever happen. At this pace, my next site(s) are going to be ready when I could actually afford to buy a new computer with my current salary, so probably in another 4 years. Yeepee.

Today's retro game: Spider-Man (the latest review on 1UP !)

Today's recent game: Harvest Moon Poem of Happiness (they plan to release a "for world" version... they are crazy. I forgot to upload an image for that game, which means I have to go through more sloooowness agaaaaaain, noooooooooooo... *dramatic slow-motion effect*)

Some days are worse than some others. Today was one of the bad one.

Pain. Fear. Loss. Shame. Envy. Despair. Death.



[It happened on September 31 though, hopefully it was the final strike from the September Curse... spare me o mighty gods, for I shall not carry the burden of your wrath any further]